Long-time analyst for National Public Radio, Juan Williams has been fired from his position as a political analyst late Wednesday over comments he made on the FOX network’s ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ about Muslims and terrorism.
The NPR has said that William’s remarks, which included being “nervous” when seeing Muslims on airplanes, "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."
Williams made the comments on Monday when he was asked by show host Bill O’Reilly whether he thought that the US faced a “Muslim dilemma.” Williams, 56 answered:
"The cold truth is that in the world today, jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet. I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said of his well-publicized views, as an African American, about race and equality. "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
O’Reilly has also recently been the center of controversy around his views on Muslims, when he made show hosts of ‘The View’ Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walk off set after he said “Muslims killed us on 9/11.”
The issue of conflating all Muslims, an estimated 1.6 billion people world-wide, with Islamic extremism has plagued discourse in the US since the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001.
